idk but i think that yu will die with the power of destruction, like he will save pooh and nao , with the help of takajou and yusa, but he will die protecting his friends that´ll be kind of cool but sad, also i think that the vocalist of zhiend is important to the story, ( i know that pooh is dead but he will make it somehow with yuu´s help )
(im kind of sad so i´m kind of making my own theories that will make me happy)
Ithink one interesting thing about Key for me is that it is never the death of a character that gets me crying; they have a certain pattern, which has worked for me so far. And that pattern hasn’t come up yet at all
Well to rephrase the death of a character doesn’t get me much either, as someone mentioned earlier rather than the death it’s the reaction of those left behind. But at the same time I needed to like the character who both died and survived to really get an emotional response from it. If someone just died and that’s the end of it I’m fine but as soon as another character I like begins to cry and scream I can’t help but get emotional.
Believe me I’m a crybaby. Give me 15 seconds of video of dog reuniting with its master, then I’ll bawl like baby.
I just see it that they fail to make us feel attached to the dead characters, so that’s why there’s no real emotional trigger (at least for me). Shun might be attached to Kumagami. Siscon Yuu might be attached to Ayumi, but we as the viewers hardly know them.
At this point, I believe that people who still thinks Charlotte is good anime, is either in a big denial, or simply doesn’t know what a good writing is.
HOW DARE PEOPLE LIKE THINGS THAT YOU PERSONALLY DON’T CLICK WITH…!
For real though come on lol, you don’t have to be down with something, but I don’t think that’s really a means to go on and target people who view things differently. Let people have free judgment- and be free to not like it and share that you don’t, but don’t attack them for having what you feel is inferior perception or false emotion that is most likely real to them.
As to your statement, I think making demands and expectations for something like emotional attachment that fits to your fancy is recipe for disaster when it comes to appreciating a story for what it is.
Huh, must have been the wrong controller then. I missed it.
That was a very confusing second paragraph btw.
People are free to like bad things, I just think less of them for it.
I don’t think so at all. Personal enjoyment aside, you can tell when something is good or bad. There are criticisms that are almost fact. It’s incredibly hard to argue with them.
It’s a common expectation that, when writing a story, you write to make the audience care. You develop characters, you steer the story in a certain direction, and you hammer home the thing that makes your story worthwhile.
If demanding and expecting any semblance of character development is a “recipe for disaster” then… I’d question whether it’s the expectations that are disastrous, or if it’s the story that is.
This here is pretty much fact. The amount of information we know about each character is minimal.
“But I like the characters!”
That doesn’t change the fact that they are not developed. They might be enjoyable, or charming, or they might be a mix of alllll the tropes you love! … but they are bad.
Guilty Crown, my favorite show, is awful.
This is where I can understand people who, with the splutterings of a disillusioned mind, think Charlotte is not bad.
I love Shu and Inori, and I love them because they are bad. Them being bad characters is pretty much a fact.
Then again… At least they can be described.
Yuu is… Well, he was a pathetic selfish brat for half an episode. Then he was… I mean, he basically did whatever he was told, with as little personal input as possible, for a long time. Then he turned into a one man army for an episode. Then he was back to being no one, having his emotions told to him by a third party.
Suddenly in this episode he went back to being pathetic for a single scene, then back to being nothing.
What is Yuu’s personality? He’s a guy who likes his sister. That’s pretty much the only “Yuu” thing I can think of.
Aaah, but maybe his lack of personality IS his personality! That’s a lazy way to explain it, right? Good job guys. We came up with an excuse.
Yusa is an idol who may be a bit in-denial about life, but that’s just Taka trying to give this drawing some life. We don’t actually know, because she hasn’t been developed since her bio showed up on a website.
Running man is used to being in pain. He’s chill sometimes. He has a house.
Ayumi likes being loud and happy, and doesn’t like being murdered. She may be trying to hide her struggle with being over-worked constantly, but again, we don’t know! That’s just Taka trying to make a personality.
The bro likes to tell jokes, and gets sad when his friends are hurt. So… he’s human.
There’s a kid who can run through walls. He’s like Sunohara, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t have Sunohara to project him on to.
Oh glob, I guess I unconsciously being offensive again! I’m sorry, I don’t need to have any opinion!
Personally I’m not expecting neither demanding for emotional attachment. I don’t really need bawlfest or tearjerker. In fact, I want to see if Key can make a good story without all the deaths and tearjerkers. Sure, I would like to appreciate the story, if only it was well written. But in my very humblest opinion, no, it wasn’t.
Sorry, I’m not gonna pull back about Charlotte being badly written. This episode might be an emotional roller coaster ride, but behind it, there are so many headscratchers. Some people might enjoy the gore or sudden unexpected deaths, or even Nao being stripped, but everything was so sudden to the point that it’s turning ridiculous.
I also don’t know why you think it’s bad to has emotional attachments to the characters. I do believe that I can appreciate the story better if I can relate to the characters and understand their line of thinking and their course of action. So far I can’t understand their course of action (because of lack character depth), which is why I think that the story is ridiculous.
This episode really hammered home to me that Maeda just doesn’t know how to keep his stories compact. Angel Beats had bad pacing because it had an ensemble cast, a multi-arc plot, and didn’t have enough time to develop anything. Charlotte is having difficulties because they built a tone-shift into the story, but put it too late in the series to properly settle in to the more serious tone. And while it initially seemed like they would focus on a small enough cast to fully develop them (Yuu, Nao, [Yu/Mi]sa, Joujirou, Ayumi), they simply added too many characters over the last three episodes.
In Maeda’s mind, all of this makes sense. The importance of the chauffeur was probably clear in his mind. The presence of this foreign syndicate was probably always in the back of his head. But without having the time to properly convey those parts of the setting that ultimately become important, these sorts of developments simply come out of nowhere for the audience.
I don’t want to be a downer about this series, but where do you even go from here?
No, you said-
^ Never said that.
I disagree. I think the story has been more thorough that I’d anticipated, it’s really tight.
I feel like Yuu and Nao have always been the focus and that the series has done a good job of making unique characters that are constructed to be very basic, but still feel welcome. I think that was the intent, and it makes a very believable universe. Not many shows have that level of detail. It’s a very good advancement from Angel Beats! which was not intended to work that way.
Then explain to me how expecting for something like emotional attachment is recipe for disaster.
You’re expecting something like a Key story you’ve already seen, but this is Maeda doing something he doesn’t normally do, therefore your expectations betray you. That is what I think. I also stated, emotional attachment that speaks to you, not just it generally. I personally find an emotional attachment to this series, therefore it has one in my opinion- So I said it’s simply because it’s not something you like, which is fine, however that is not grounds to ridicule and make assumptions of other people’s perspectives or judgment. You can’t just… ‘ask’ for feels…
So basically you have a cast full of deep characters, but the intention is to only scratch the surface on two of them? I guess that makes sense, and I’m probably in the same boat as @Hirato in that I expect certain things from a Key story that Charlotte may just not be providing.
I guess my question is, what sort of show should I compare Charlotte to? A team-based superhero story like X-men? A political/military intrigue story like Code Geass? I’m fine with considering Charlotte from a new perspective (because I agree this isn’t supposed to be giving you feels like your standard Key fare), but my expectations have blinded me to what I should think of this as.
What? Suck?
It’s also fundamentally flawed in every aspect an anime can be, aside from maybe the animation.
See, this isn’t even about Key to me. Charlotte doesn’t meet my expectations of Key, but nothing has post-CLANNAD.
Charlotte doesn’t meet my expectations of any story, from any medium. It is just a bad show.
When watching a show, the only expectations you should have are your own standards. Expect it to meet your minimum requirements for enjoyment, and if it doesn’t, it’s a waste of time.
I pretty much agree with Takafumi here. I mean I personally think Charlotte is a fun show with entertaining characters. This doesn’t change the fact that the plot is clunky and relatively shallow, that the characters are mostly flat (no one has managed to change my opinion on this) and that as far as I can tell the show has no major direction. I didn’t walk into this show expecting classic key. adter rewrite and angel beats, both of which I love mind you, I accept that key is trying out new things. That is great, but it doesn’t change the fact that Charlotte is a badly put together show. I think Maeda was trying to make something great, but like what’s been said countless times he really does not work well in a 13 episode format. Charlotte is enjoyable, but it’s just not that good.
There are still 2 episodes left, let’s just all hope they wrap the show up well.
Can it not simply be original…?
It isn’t.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I can’t help but have expectations about a work when I sit down to enjoy it, and if I have the wrong expectations I won’t get the enjoyment that I should.
In this case I think I sat down to Charlotte expecting a drama, and they gave me a hero’s journey or something else like that. I’m just wondering if I can realign my expectations and rewatch the show to get more enjoyment out of it.
Everything is a remix. Also same reply as to Takafumi, I can’t not have expectations.
Eh, I get drawing comparisons and seeing influences and all but I always view things as standalone as possible because I think it’s just a disservice the work otherwise because you set these preconceived notions and declare what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. “But Little Busters!-” arguments for example I just ignore, really.
Oh, and it’s also like, the extent of the expectations. I have them too, as you can see in my hopes or predictions, but I don’t let those betray me- I still enjoy things when they aren’t what I would have originally wanted or expected. In fact I like when something defies my expectation, but I don’t rank them in ‘good’ or ‘bad’, just ‘what I’d thought’ and ‘what I get’. If that makes sense. Words.
This episode was good and i have seen in a blog this:
「C」ollapse
「H」ypnotism
「A」scertainment
「R」emove memories
「L」ooting
「O」bscure
「T」ime leap
「T」eleport
「E」vocation / Emblaze
well, kinda makes sense
That’s a different thing, subversion of expectation, which is not what I’m talking about here.
We’re not talking about the work subverting a trope or surprising the audience, we’re talking about the audience (me specifically) working under the wrong initial expectations of what the work is trying to achieve. I don’t think that does a disservice to the work, if anything I think having the right expectations does more service to the work because you can put yourself in the correct mindframe.
The perfect example of this, to me, is horror. There are many ways to watch a horror movie. You can walk in to the movie ready to be scared, allow yourself to get taken by the ambience, and let yourself get terrified. You can also watch very passively, being distracted by other things, and generally being disengaged. You can also watch hypercritically, predicting the jump scares, noting every flaw in the special effects, actively hunting for plot holes and unrealistic character action.
If you watch the horror movie the first way, you’re much more likely to enjoy it than the other ways. By coming in expecting to be scared, you are more likely to be scared.
That’s what I’m saying about Charlotte. I came in expecting to have feels (I think the pre-aired PV helped set that up). I was trying to analyze character interactions and motivations. I was trying to sympathize with and learn about who those characters were, with the belief that doing so would allow me to better enjoy the drama when it started to unfold. I wanted to be that audience member active in my own entertainment.
Instead I got something else. Not necessarily something bad, but something I wasn’t prepared for. I got an action adventure show with some big twists and turns, essentially a thriller. I think the best way to watch a thriller is to sit back and let it wash over you, to take everything at face value and allow yourself to be surprised by the twists and turns the story takes. My attempts to be an active and invested member of the audience has actually reduced my enjoyment, because I’ve had an inkling of every twist before it happens, because I’ve invested too much of myself in analyzing the show.
That’s what I’m getting at, having the right expectations can help you better appreciate a show because you approach in correctly. Charlotte set up the wrong expectations.
I’m still waiting until Charlotte is completely over to cast my judgment of the show.
So far I like it as an anime, but it’s not felt special or particularly engaging the way every other Key work has. I don’t think anything will be able to change that, because I haven’t felt a build-up of feels like I felt watching Kanon and Clannad and Angel Beats!.
I’m somewhat inclined to agree with @Bizkitdoh that Charlotte isn’t objectively bad. Or at least not completely bad. I mean, you can say that it has poor character development or bad directing or whatever, but that still comes down to what one considers good character development or good directing. Sure, there’s a “normal” consensus of what makes something good, but that doesn’t make it truly objective. It’s opinion disguised as fact.
From what I’ve read, Biz thinks that Charlotte is good. Not just that he likes it, but that Charlotte is actually doing things right. I also think Charlotte has done some things right.
I also agree with @therationalpi that Charlotte set up the wrong expectations. When I first heard of Charlotte, I heard it was going to be 2-cour and better than Angel Beats!. Coming from Key, I expected to get “Key feels”.
